One sentence helped lift CoreWeave (CRWV) stock 15.6% to $56.33 in premarket trading Wednesday. CEO Michael Intrator told investors the AI cloud company would stop borrowing where lenders charge it most.
Lenders had been charging plenty. CoreWeave’s 2032 bonds yielded above 16% on November 6, more than three times the 10-year Treasury yield. The shares had lost 47.5% in a month.
What Did CoreWeave’s CEO Actually Promise?
The line came midway through Tuesday’s earnings call.
“Looking ahead, we will not use the unsecured debt market to fund our business at current yields. Nor do we need to,” Intrator said on the call.
Unsecured debt is money borrowed on a promise alone, with no assets pledged. CFO Nitin Agrawal said CoreWeave will not issue more of it through 2027.
So where does the cash come from? CoreWeave will borrow against signed customer contracts at an expected 7% to 7.5%. Customers will also hand over about $9 billion in prepayments and deposits within three months.
BeInCrypto’s CoreWeave earnings preview flagged the call as management’s first chance to tackle borrowing costs. Options priced a 20.7% swing either way.
Does the Pledge Fix CoreWeave’s Debt Problem?
The bill is still growing. Interest expense hit $846 million in the third-quarter earnings report. CoreWeave expects $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion next quarter.
Over the past year, interest costs rose 173%. Revenue grew 168%.
Wall Street is split. Jefferies cut its price target to $90 from $150. Citizens kept a $180 target but warned that financing costs remain substantial.
Rivals borrow the same way. Nebius took a $3.5 billion, one-year secured facility from Citi in October. IREN closed a $3.65 billion GPU loan in June, backed by a Microsoft contract.
Neither announcement included a pledge to avoid unsecured debt. Coreweave, however, has committed.
CoreWeave still plans to raise less than $5 billion at the parent level through 2027. Nebius reports Thursday, the next test of how AI cloud firms pay for growth.
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